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Phone Poll
ring, ring – ring, ring
Hello?
Good evening Mrs. Answer. We are conducting a very short poll for the Washington Post. It will only take 5 minutes of your time. Would you please have the courtesy to answer these few question?
Oh another poll, I just took my pills and was ready to go to bed.
Please Mrs. Answer, it is really very very short and you know it’s for the very important Washington Post paper that did this Watergate investigation. I am sure you will remember that.
Oh yes, yes I do remember that one. They buged some party offices back then, didn´t they. Well, okay. I’m tired. Why don´t you just start.
Have you heard of todays reports about the National Security Agency collecting information about all phone calls inside the United States?
Oh no, I have not heared that. What paper is doing that again?
No, not a paper. The NSA. The National Security Agency is doing this phone call collection program.
You mean, they are listening to us on the phone? Right now?
No. Ahemm. No, that is – I don´t know. But why would they be interested in a poll call like this. So no Mrs. Answer, I don´t think they are listening to us.
Now, could I ask you the few questions right away?
Oh, oh, you mean you don´t know – ahh – ahem – ahh – Yes, I mean sure yes, s_u_ r_e, s_u_r_ e.
Okay. No 1,
The National Security Agency has a program to collect information on telephone
calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats.
Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with such a program.
I ahh I don´t know, I ahh, I agree I think, you know ahh yes ahem yes ahh I strongly agree – do you listen? I strongly agree with that program.
…
Poll: Most Americans Support NSA’s Efforts
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TIA Automated Intercept Report – 05/12/06 11:23pm – detected keyword relevance level: high – keywords detected: "investigate", "National Security", "NSA", "pills", "terrorist", "threats", "Washington Post", "Watergate" – call attendees elevated to surveilence level 2 – end TIA
” KM: In this context, why is Europe increasingly being supportive of US policies in the Middle East?
NC: If you look back over the past decades, a major concern of US policy -and it’s very clear in internal planning – is that Europe might strike an independent course. During the cold war period, US was afraid Europe might follow what they called “a third way,” and many mechanisms were used to inhibit any intention on the part of Europe to follow an independent course. That goes right back to the final days of World War II and its immediate aftermath, when US and Britain intervened, in some cases quite violently, to suppress the anti-fascist resistance and restore tradition structures, including fascist-Nazi collaborators. Germany was reconstructed pretty much the same way. The unwillingness to accept a unified neutral Germany in the 1950s was predicated on the same thinking. We don’t know if that would have been possible, but Stalin did offer a unified Germany which would have democratic elections which he was sure to lose, but on condition that it would not be part of a hostile military alliance. However, the US was not willing to tolerate a unified Germany. The establishment of NATO is in large part an effort to ensure European discipline and the current attempts to expand NATO are further planning of the same sort.
European elites have been, by and large, pretty satisfied with this arrangement. They’re not very different from the dominant forces in the US. They are somewhat different, but closely interrelated. There are mutual investments and business relations. The elite sectors of Europe don’t particularly object to the US policies. You can see this very strikingly in the case of Iran. The US has sought to isolate and strangle Iran for years. It had embargos and sanctions, and it has repeatedly threatened Europe to eliminate investments in Iran. The main European corporations have pretty much agreed to that. China, on the other hand, did not. China can’t be intimidated, that’s why the US government is frightened of China. But Europe backs off and pretty much follows US will. The same is true on the Israel-Palestine front. The US strongly supports Israeli takeover of the valuable parts of the occupied territories and pretty much the elimination of the possibility of any viable Palestinian state. On paper, the Europeans disagree with that and they do join the international consensus on a two-state settlement, but they don’t do anything about it. They’re not willing to stand against the US. When the US government decided to punish the Palestinians for electing the wrong party in the last elections, Europe went along, not totally, but pretty much. By and large, European elites do not see it in their interest to confront the US. They’d rather integrate with it. The problem the US is having with China, and Asia more generally, is that they don’t automatically accept US orders.
KM: They don’t fall in line…
NC: Yes, they won’t fall in line, and, especially in the case of China, they just won’t be intimidated. That’s why, if you read the latest National Security Strategy, China is identified as the major long range threat to the US. This is not because China is going to invade or attack anyone. In fact, of all the major nuclear powers, they’re the one that is the least aggressive, but they simple refuse to be intimidated, not just in their policies regarding the Middle East, but also in Latin America. While the US is trying to isolate and undermine Venezuela, China proceeds to invest in and to import from Venezuela without regard to what the US says.
The international order is in a way rather like the mafia. The godfather has to ensure that there is discipline.
Europe quietly pursues its own economic interests as long as they don’t fall in direct conflict with the US. Even in the case of Iran, although major European corporations did pull out of country, and Europe did back down on its bargain with Tehran on uranium enrichment, nevertheless, Europe does maintain economic relations with Iran. For years, the US has also tried to prevent Europe from investing in Cuba and Europe pretty much kept away, but not entirely. The US has a mixed attitude towards European investment and resource extraction in Latin America. For one thing, the US and European corporate systems are very much interlinked. The US relies on European support in many parts of the world. For Europe to invest in Latin America and import its resources is by no means as threatening to US domination as when China does.”
noam chomsky/recent entretien znet
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 13 2006 14:42 utc | 20
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